We now speak the language of self-management, but it is still difficult for a group of subordinates to call a meeting that excludes their boss. We bear the imprint of the fact that in times past self-management was called mutiny. -- Peter Block, Flawless Consulting

I've recently been talking about customer unresponsiveness with a client of mine, and a perfect example of our persisting wrongheaded attitudes in this respect just crossed my inbox, courtesty of the online mag StickyMinds. Peter Clark discusses "bread crumbs" - leaving a trail of written traces to document important decisions affecting a project...

Phlip kicked me off on the subject of build discipline, with the wonderful question: "In an agile context, how do new people on the team get up to speed on how we compile, build, package and release the product ?" Phlip mentions a classic solution, in which the project's "eldest guru" assists the new person in setting up their workstation. My...

Does XP recommend jumping straight to code? Cleverly hidden in the chapter "Lifecycle of an ideal XP Project", we find the following recommendation from Kent Beck in Extreme Programming Explained: You are done with exploration when the customer is confident that there is more than enough material on the story cards to make a good first release and...

To the computer security specialist, one of the basic tools is the threat model. This is a model that gives you an idea of where, when and how an attacker is likely to compromise a system's security. The model must be clear and simple, because all security decisions must relate to it in some way. For instance, the threat model to which we owe...

To the computer security specialist, one of the basic tools is the threat model. This is a model that gives you an idea of where, when and how an attacker is likely to compromise a system's security. The model must be clear and simple, because all security decisions must relate to it in some way. For instance, the threat model to which we owe...

Today's thought is just a quote: An organization that can accelerate but not change direction is like a car that can speed up but not steer. In the short run, it makes lots of progress in whatever direction it happened to be going. In the long run, it's just another road wreck. -- Tom DeMarco, Slack

It's been one of these days of mostly staring at the screen, struggling with any number of things that have to be done, not being able to decide which of them to do next, and ending up doing damn few of them overall. I've started and thrown away more blog entries than I wrote last month. This isn't a crisis for me. Working for the most part alone,...

It's been one of these days of mostly staring at the screen, struggling with any number of things that have to be done, not being able to decide which of them to do next, and ending up doing damn few of them overall. I've started and thrown away more blog entries than I wrote last month. This isn't a crisis for me. Working for the most part alone,...

I've recently read DeMarco and Lister's "Waltzing with Bears", a short and useful book on risk management which confirmed some of my own prejudices on the subject. One idea in particular stood out and made me look at project planning in a new light: A very simple test for risk management is to look at the project plan laid out in Project or in any...

There's a tragedy going on in our industry; at least in my country, where I was deeply saddened by a recent post to the newsgroup fr.comp.developpement. This was a post by a recent graduate of a prestigious engineering school, asking if he "really needed to have development experience before moving on to project management". It seems that the only...

There's a tragedy going on in our industry; at least in my country, where I was deeply saddened by a recent post to the newsgroup fr.comp.developpement. This was a post by a recent graduate of a prestigious engineering school, asking if he "really needed to have development experience before moving on to project management". It seems that the only...

Once upon a time a donkey was dozing in a field, growing hungry. "This bunch of thistle shoots over there looks quite nice. I'll wander in that direction and have myself a nice meal." The donkey made to stand up, but a thought struck him. "From this vantage point, that looks like a meager bunch. I'm liable to be still hungry when I'm done with it...

Once upon a time a donkey was dozing in a field, growing hungry. "This bunch of thistle shoots over there looks quite nice. I'll wander in that direction and have myself a nice meal." The donkey made to stand up, but a thought struck him. "From this vantage point, that looks like a meager bunch. I'm liable to be still hungry when I'm done with it...

"Try being a manager yourself before you go too far off into your 'they're all idiots' zone." That was Jim's feedback on an earlier note of mine, and not the first time I've had this sort of feedback. I've had "manager" titles pinned on me, which certainly is different from actually being a manager. I'm also a parent, which is somewhat like being...